A comparison of disease specific survival of patients who died of and who had newly diagnosed prostate cancer.

Abstract

We investigated the validity of calculating prostate specific survival from a population of deaths occurring during a given period. Stochastic simulation was used to generate a large number of life histories of men with prostate cancer. The investigated method of calculating survival can lead to different outcomes compared to the standard method. In an example with a Dutch population structure the investigated method leads to strong underestimation of 25 years of survival. The method of calculating survival studied is theoretically not valid. Several probable changes in the population can produce results that are different from the standard method of calculating survival.